Thursday, 20 April 2017

Happy Easter, Happy spring!

Hagiography says that Seraphim of Sarov used to greet all his guests with a prostration, a kiss, and a cry of "Christ is risen, my joy!" And so, in the first week of Paschaltide and the fifth week of spring: "Christ is risen, my joy! Christ is risen!"

Unfortunately, I don't have many photos from the Triduum--there are some times in life when it's more important to be "in the moment" than capturing that moment for social media (and frankly, juggling candles, hymnals, missals, incense and matches doesn't leave many hands free for cameras!)
Suffice to say that God is good, the liturgy was beautiful and Christ is risen! And we are grateful.

In other news, Jessica, our aspirant, has been hard at work in soap room all Lent. Between the sage, cocoa peppermint swirl and the cinnamon-vanilla oatmeal scents, sometimes the soaps smell good enough to eat!

Unmolding a trial run of stamped lavender bars.

The soap has to cure for at least a month for the harshness of the lye to mellow. Happy lye, happy soap, happy face!

With the change in season, we've experienced a sudden influx of
guests—some named Flora, some named Fauna. When the gentle showerspersistent precipitationwet coast welcomeomnipresent downpour rain
takes a break, the novitiate's been spending as much time outside as
possible to make up for the long winter.

We have our refectory inside. These little guys have their refectory outside, but they're not very good at keeping silence! "Chirp chirp, bzzt bzzt, whhhrrrrr!"

Skunk cabbage, or Lysichiton americanus, candling the wetlands.

Finally, we had our first "official" bear sighting on the south field this Wednesday morning...but we also had a bear sighting on Sr. Marie Tersidis' birthday last week! The ursine in question was about four inches tall, very sweet, and thoroughly incorrigible....

For
the record: "a fed bear is a dead bear", so please don't feed the wildlife (particularly if the sign saying
"Please feed the bears" is written by a cakepop bear holding a licorice
pen and sitting in the midst of a jelly bean squash patch...)

Until next time: "Christ is risen, my joy, Christ is risen!" And if you want to learn more about respecting our furry neighbours as they emerge from their dens this spring, check out the Get Bear Smart society, an organization based out of Whistler, B.C.